Kieran Devaneaux (2406)
In 2406, Kieran Elias Devaneaux (born January 11, 2355, in Belfast, United Republic of Ireland; died August 25, 2406, Montagne Noire, Reydovan Prime) was the Emperor of the Reydovan Empire until his death. As he was intended to look much older, Joshua Underwood was uncertain which actor to use to portray him. After some deliberation, he decided on Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini, in his role as Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV in the SciFi minseries of Frank Herbert's Dune. Underwood had to do some careful photomanipulation work - using the artwork of Kieran he had to get the scar, particularly - to get the blinded right eye looking just right. This incarnation of Kieran is intended for the Star Trek: Revelations room on Silver Crossings, set in 2406 - thirty years after Star Trek: Alliances. In his futuristic incarnation (as portrayed by Giannini), the Emperor is 51, and has ruled the Reydovan Empire for thirty years. Kieran's hair is shorter and much curlier, as compared to the long straight hair he is seen to have in the artwork. Events Since Defileron Note: For the relevant information before this point, see Kieran Devaneaux. After the defeat of the Empire of Defileron, Kieran had a relatively peaceful reign. Between 2376 and 2379, much of his reign was dedicated to hunting down and wiping out the last vestiges of the Separatist movement and solidifying his power base. Backed strongly by his Chancellor, Joshua Underwood, Kieran began many programs to rebuild Imperial worlds and send aid to the Federation, still struggling to rebuild itself after Demon-Kieran besieged Earth for nearly two months in 2376, killing millions and leaving the cities of Paris and San Francisco shattered. Previously, the Emperor had had very little power; all matters were handled by the Chancellor. In 2380, however, Kieran restored the near-absolute power of the Emperor's throne over the Empire, lost after Kiran Joshmaul's abdication five years earlier. As Kieran's power increased, the power of his major advisors - Underwood, Alexander Ross, and Imperial Supreme Commander Matthew Russell - began to wane. The Changing Times In 2401, Emperor Kieran I celebrated his silver jubilee, and also the 25th anniversary of the defeat of Demon-Kieran at the Battle of Defileron. Among those attending the celebrations were his grandparents, Mikhail and Catherine Britanov, his uncles Anatoliy and Vasily, his great-uncle Admiral Saxtus Fayhan (Ret.), and the "galaxy's two elder statesmen", Joshmaul and Underwood. While he greatly enjoyed the twenty-five years he had spent on the Emperor's throne, Kieran was forced to look at the mortality of the galaxy not too long after... Kieran had never coped well with losing a beloved friend family member; having lost his mother Anastasia to the mania of his father, Artimus, had been a crushing blow. As the second quarter-century of Kieran's reign began, more family and trusted friends began to die. In 2402, General Jonathan Ross, son of his Chancellor, was nearly killed in a shuttle accident that cost him his right leg - only his iron will and his proximity to a hospital prevented him from meeting his death. But there were deaths, and some very close to home. The first, and most painful, occurred a week after Ross' shuttle accident; Kieran's wife Celest, a captain in Starfleet, was killed in an engineering accident on her ship, the Moonfire. Jonathan Ross' wife Jeanette, an engineer onboard the Moonfire, was also killed in that explosion. The following year, his grandfather, Mikhail Britanov - having served the Federation both as a soldier and as a Councillor for nearly eighty years - died of Reyerson's disease at the age of ninety-three. Two months after that, Chancellor Alexander Ross - Underwood's chosen successor and about the same age as Britanov - died of a heart attack. In 2405, his trusted military advisor, Matthew Russell, died at the age of one hundred and seven. Three months after that, Celest's father-in-law, Admiral Ian Taylor, was dead of a heart attack at seventy-three. Underwood's son TJ, a retired Starfleet admiral and childhood friend, died a day later in a shuttle crash, at sixty-two. With all of these deaths in such a short space of time, only the counsel of Joshua Underwood - who had served as an informal advisor in the decades following his retirement from the Chancellorship - kept the Emperor from going into a deep depression. A New Beginning? In 2406, the third decade of Kieran's reign began, and the future of Imperial relations with their neighbors is very uncertain. His son Kieran II, born two months before the Emperor was crowned, has been groomed to succeed him in the event of his death, and two other sons, Dominic (2378) and Travis (2380) were born over the course of his reign; Dominic joined the Palace Guard, and Travis has had aspirations of joining Starfleet. There has been no Chancellor since Alexander Ross' death in 2403, though there are rumors that Underwood may be elected once more. With the rift between the Empire and the Federation growing, Kieran wishes to seek a re-establishment of relations with the Federation, so that the friendship between the Federation and the Reydovans will remain in place after Kieran's death - which, due to his El-Aurian and Eugenic genetics, no one is entirely sure when that will be. Memorable Events in Kieran's Reign The Emperor's power is absolute. His word is law; anyone who defies him is imprisoned or executed. But despite this absolutist rule, Kieran remains very much a man of the people, and thus gives no reason for anyone to defy him. The last public executions carried out by the Empire were that of the Federation criminal Dawson Crenshaw and the Gorak'nar renegade Jaeden'laek, on January 1, 2377. The event was attended by Federation President Talus of Vulcan and Gorak'nar High Inquisitor Velenkayn VI, and held in the courtyard of the Imperial Palace on Reydovan Prime. Crenshaw, as the lesser of the three evils, was allowed to choose his method of execution. Crenshaw, remorseful over the mass slaughter he had committed but unshaken from his xenophobia, demanded a firing squad...and that was precisely what he received. Jaeden'laek, captured by Admiral Ian Taylor (who received an immediate promotion after the fact), was executed in Gorak'nar fashion - he was stretched out on a rack and impaled with his own crystalline staff, then left to die painfully. As a gesture of his magnanimous spirit, Kieran joined with the Federation President and the Gorak'nar High Inquisitor in pardoning all the surviving Separatists - Federation, Reydovan and Gorak'nar alike - who had been coerced by Demon-Kieran into fighting for the Empire of Defileron. Defileron itself was consumed by the fires of volcanic and tectonic instability brought on by the detonation of the energy converter that powered the mountain fortress-city of Artimopolis. The most momentous event in the Empire before Kieran's silver jubilee was the Imperial Centennial, in 2396. It celebrated the crowning of Emperor Joshmaul I and the long reign he led, and also the crowning of Kieran as Emperor in 2376. Suicide But Kieran was wracked by grief both for the death of his wife Celest, and the fact that his younger son Travis - now a cadet at Starfleet Academy - hated him so vehemently. Kieran was a silent observer in a meeting between Travis and Kiran Joshmaul on August 21, 2406, in which Travis made his dislike of his father clear. Four days later, shortly after returning to Reydovan Prime, the Emperor hanged himself. He was discovered two days later by his chief advisor, Joshua Underwood. Kieran Devaneaux's death ended a political epoch in the Reydovan Empire, but unlike the abdication of Joshmaul three decades earlier, there was no gap in the succession. Kieran was succeeded by his eldest son, Kieran II. Instead of being buried on Reydovan Prime, he was taken to Earth and buried next to his wife at Riverside National Cemetery in southern California, as was his wish. Though Underwood has killed off the "real" universe's Kieran Devaneaux, he intends to bring Kieran - as well as his demented father, Artimus - back into the battlefields of Revelations in the ongoing mirror universe storyline. Devaneaux, Kieran 2406